LEGACY

09.13.11

Jackie 'Happiest' at White House

Keystone / Getty Images

Jacqueline Kennedy described her time with John F. Kennedy at the White House as “our happiest years,” according to oral-history interviews the widowed first lady recorded in early 1964, sealed by the Kennedy Library until this month. The tapes show a first lady deeply engaged in her husband's presidency. During the Cuban missile crisis, she said she pleaded with her husband to allow her and her two young children to remain at the White House, even if there wasn't enough room in the bomb shelter. "Please don't send me anywhere. If anything happens, we're all going to stay right here with you," she recalled telling the president. The audio and transcripts of the interviews are being released in book form this month in Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy.